Beneath the Darkest Sky Page 5

“You seem to be walking just fine, Abram,” I said.

  “Because I was a runner.” He coughed. “Even when I was teaching history at the university in Leningrad for all of those decades, I’d run every day at lunch with a colleague. In fact, he’s the one I was visiting in Moscow when we were both arrested. Where he is now, I don’t know.”

  “What did you do for work, Prescott, when you were free?” asked Yury.

  “I was an engineer and a teacher, and I worked for a diplomat. I was—”

  “Look!” said Yury. “There are women in that camp on the other side of the barbed wire fence in the distance.”

  The six of us looked to the north a couple hundred yards away.

  “You told me the women went north from Moscow, Abram,” I said.

  “No women came on our train,” he said. “Those women have been here. They came on different trains.”

  “I want to see Mommy!” said James, crying and beginning to walk fast toward the fence.

  “Stop, son!” I yelled, running after him, clutching his arm and giving him a hug. “Your mother is not there!”

  “She is!” he said, trying to break free from me. “I know she is! I want to see her!”

  “You will, son. You will. Just not right now. You hear?”

  Sobbing, he nodded into my chest. He felt so light, and his cry was barely audible. His body was too worn down to make tears.

  “I’m here, son. I love you. Nothing’s going to happen to you. But don’t run away from me again. Understand?”

  Once more, he nodded.

  “It’s okay!” said Abram, approaching and putting his arm around James. “You will see your mother again, boy. I am an old man who knows this. Look at me.”

  James pulled away from my clutch and gazed up at the old, wise Russian.

  “I miss my children, boy. I know you are scared.” He coughed. “But you have a strong father. Trust him. Stay by his side. All of you . . . come!”

  The six of us all huddled together.

  “We are in hell,” said Abram. “Stalin’s hell! But we can stick together and support one another . . . keep each other alive. Try not to think of tomorrow. Try to think of only right now. Help one another with kind words and encouragement. Our spirits won’t die. You, Boris . . . who did you leave behind?”

  “My mother and father,” said the blond-haired twenty-something-year-old who’d been sitting to my left the entire trip. “But they are in Sweden. I was studying at Moscow State University. I learned Russian there.”

  “Think of them,” said Abram. “And don’t stop. You will see them again. And you, Mikhail . . . you have been sitting to my right for a month and I’ve heard you weeping under your breath. Whom do you weep for?”

  “My wife,” said Mikhail. “My parents have been dead for years. My sister lives in Paris, so she is alive and well. But my wife is still home in Moscow where I worked as a clerk. She is pregnant. My child will be born in weeks and I won’t be there. I will never see my child and wife again.”

  The tall, handsome, olive-skinned Mikhail stiffened his arms at his sides, closed his eyes, and began to cry. He didn’t hold back, and the anguish on his young, angular face helped tell the story. He was maybe thirty, but the gray specks in his black hair and thin beard suggested he was aging rapidly.

  “Be strong, young man!” said Abram, touching his hand to Mikhail’s shoulder. “You must stay alive for your yet unborn child and lovely wife. She will be waiting for you. I don’t care if you spend all ten years in the camps, you must stay alive.”

  “It’s important to watch each other’s backs,” I said, scanning the population. “There might be some real animals in here. Zones be damned! It’s not enough to simply stay mentally strong. We have to stay mentally alert as well.”

  “You and Boris are the only ones imposing enough to defend yourselves,” said Yury. “In fact, Comrade Sweet, you look like a sportsman. How have you managed to maintain your large build during this journey? Are you Americans all like this, like machines that don’t need food.” He looked at James. “Of course not! Your son looks like me. He looks weak and thin. But you, Comrade Sweet . . . you look very alive.”

  “I began the trip in very good condition,” I said. “I had built up a lot of muscle and it has served me well, I suppose. But it will atrophy soon enough. Muscle isn’t immune to the negative effects of being sedentary, not even mine.”

  “When I used to hear stories five years ago about the prisons,” said Abram, “I heard that they separated the politicals from the murderers and rapists. And I still believe it’s true. The guards just told us that story about monsters in our midst to further torture us. No! The real animals are in the zone on the other side, waiting to go to Kolyma where then we’ll have to avoid them.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but we should be cautious nonetheless. Maybe those on the other side are just the ones getting ready to leave first. We can’t be sure. Are you feeling okay, son?”

  “My stomach is swollen,” he softly said, his Russian words nasal-sounding from his emotional episode.

  “Mine feels the same way, James,” said Boris. “Yet I am still starving. It must be normal.”

  “It is,” I said. “It’s just water retention in your gut, son. Bloat from a lack of protein. Try to ignore it.”

  I had some extra bread in my pocket that I wanted to give James, but figured I’d wait until the two of us had a moment alone.

  “Negro zek Sweet!” said the familiar guard approaching. “You need to come with me now.”

  I looked at him and then at James. Was he here to take me for another private meal? Maybe. But the tone in his voice sounded different this time, more urgent. I couldn’t help but feel real concern over leaving James.

  “Can my son come with me?” I boldly, and perhaps stupidly, asked.

  “No! Come! Now!”

  Abram nodded at me, telling me with his sunken, droopy eyes that he’d watch over my boy. The old man even put his arm around James to further ease my panic. But my instinct told me I would be leaving my boy for more than a few minutes this time.

  “Please!” I said to the guard, pleading with my eyes, hoping the private meals I’d eaten in front of him had somehow led to him taking a personal liking to me. But they hadn’t. He frowned at me, raised his rifle, and struck me in the stomach.

  “Daddy!” cried James, as Abram held him back.

  I leaned over trying to catch my breath.

  “Toropit’sya!” said the guard, his voice getting angry.

  I took the bread from my pocket and handed it to James, hoping it wouldn’t further draw the guard’s ire. It did not. He stood there holding his rifle. As I began to move, he turned and led me south, past the long stretch of barracks again, the hungry, aimless, wandering zeks oblivious to us.

  We exited the camp and headed toward the train. Waiting beside the tracks was a black vehicle, two unfamiliar officers sitting up front. As we approached, my accompanying guard opened the back door.

  “Get in!” he said. And I did.

  The car started moving, just the two officers and me inside. I was not scared. I was worried about James but did not fear for my own life. And as the hours passed, and this long drive toward some newer version of hell continued, my nerves stayed calm. Call it faith. Call it experience. Call it bravery. All I was certain of was that a sudden calm washed over me as we began to enter a new type of terrain. We were driving deeper and deeper into a thick woods—so thick that the afternoon sunlight began to fade away. The fir, spruce, and oak seemed to grow taller with each passing minute, the road a little more rugged.

  6

  Aboard the Trumpet yacht

  Three years earlier

  ALL FIVE CABINS ON THE TRUMPET WERE NAMED AFTER AFRICAN wild animals. On that continent, the most impressive and elusive of all of those roaming the land are categorized as the Big Five. They include the lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros. Loretta and I were staying in the Lion’s
Den on the lower deck.

  Dorene’s father wasn’t a hunter but had visited Africa on several occasions and had taken some impressive photographs of the Big Five, all of which decorated the walls of the respective cabins. We hadn’t been aboard the beautiful boat for a minute before James and Ginger begged to have the Rhinoceros Cabin. Something about the animal’s long, pointy horn captivated them.

  We had dined on the main deck both nights so far—trout on the first, duck on the second—and had all watched the sunset each night before winding down with butter half cake and tea. The ship’s crew was at our beck and call around the clock.

  Upon first laying eyes on the beautiful white yacht, I suddenly had a sweet tooth, as its design reminded me of a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with caramelized almonds sprinkled on top. The round windows dotted along its hull were framed with dark mahogany, and its two decks and railing were made of cedar.

  For Loretta and me, the trip up the Atlantic toward Nantucket felt like a second honeymoon, our first having been a simple weekend in Montpelier, Vermont. As I lay on the bed in my white T-shirt and underpants watching her wash her face at the sink, her white silk nightgown shining in the cabin light, I realized how completely attracted I still was to her after eighteen years of marriage.

  “Can you imagine getting used to this, Love?” she said, turning to me while pat-drying her face with a washcloth. “I mean, I’d like to think I’m a changed woman, having seen what I saw in Haiti. I certainly consider myself much more of a woman of conscience now. But, still, could you ever see yourself living like this, like a king?”

  “All right, Miss Princess and the Pea!”

  “No, I’m serious. Could you?”

  “In all my life,” I said, hands behind my head on the pillow, legs straight and crossed at the ankles, “I’ve never even taken the time to imagine such luxury.”

  “Well, I, for one, Mr. Sweet, am a woman who would like to get used to it.” Her voice sounded playful. “I wish this big ol’ yacht would just keep going and going around the world until our children are all grown up. I’m half joking, but then again . . . on the serious side . . . they’re so safe on this boat, so jubilant and carefree. I know it’s a vacation, not the real world, but it’s just special to see all of us so completely together and bonded as a family unit. I’m trying to take it all in, knowing that we are very fortunate to be experiencing this exact moment in time. I feel like you’re the captain that’s keeping us protected. I find it beyond attractive.”

  “I’m your captain, huh?” I said, watching her brush her long hair.

  “You are my captain, Love. You are the only man on this yacht who could fix it if it broke down . . . because the helmsman and crew darn sure seem to value your opinion more than I’d expect. And don’t think I haven’t seen the way you’ve been explaining to Bobby how the mahogany was used throughout to offset the white exterior, and how the planking was laid, and the type of fuel—”

  “And the hydraulics, the propulsion, the electrical system, the wheel room, the—”

  “Stop it, Mister!” She hurried over and jumped in the bed, pretending as if she might land on me.

  “That was too close for comfort, lady.” I pulled her close and we lay on our sides face to face. “Sorry I talk like that. You did marry an engineer.”

  “No, I married a very sexy engineer.”

  “Ty krasivaya,” I whispered in Russian, running my fingers through her long hair.

  “What did you say, love?”

  “You are beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Ya lyublyu tebya,” I said, our noses nearly touching.

  “And that means?”

  “It means ‘I love you.’ ”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Why do you brush your hair at night again?”

  “Because it pulls the natural oils from my scalp into my hair, and that’s very healthy for it while I sleep.”

  “Sleep? Can’t that wait?”

  “Oh yeah, love.” She spoke softly. “It can wait a long time.”

  She began kissing me and we stayed like this for a while until I ran my hand along her thigh and she opened herself to me. I reached farther under her gown and pulled her black panties off with one hand as she straightened her legs to help me. There was a natural smell to her skin that wasn’t always present—one that I believed indicated how intimate she was feeling. Of course, maybe I just wanted to believe that—my ego at play. Whatever the case, there would be no foreplay tonight, no setting the mood, for I saw in her mirroring eyes what we both were desiring.

  Scooting off of the mattress, I stood at the end of the bed and removed my underpants while she remained on her back. “Leave my gown on,” she said, sliding toward me a bit and lifting her long legs up for me to grab. I took both of my hands and placed them on her ankles, pulling her to bed’s edge, where I would remain standing. I slid my hands down to her under-knees, calmly pushing her bent legs back, her gown bunched up at the waist. I leaned forward, my hands still cupping her knees while I entered her. She cried out softly. Once again I felt us becoming one. And I would try to prolong this oneness for as long as possible tonight. My mind had a singular thought: This was the only woman I would ever love.

  * * *

  Weeks later, on August 1, as our train approached Moscow—having chugged from France through Belgium, Germany, and Poland—the eight of us looked out of the windows and I tried to imagine what this new world might be like for us. I thought of the men I’d known who’d been here and had said such positive things. Men like my old poet friend Claude McKay, and my idol, W.E.B. Du Bois. What was the essence of this place that had so captivated these colored gentlemen?

  Even the famous poet Langston Hughes had been here just two years earlier. I’d read where he had said of this place: “Folks went out of their way there to show us courtesy. On a crowded bus, nine times out of ten, some Russian would say, ‘Negochanski tovarish—Negro comrade—take my seat!’ ”

  Maybe there was something powerful going on here, some approach to changing unjust societies for the better good that I could use to help my people overcome their continuing plight against global, racial injustice. Might the still-burgeoning revolution that was taking place here serve as the blueprint for other countries? Perhaps the world needed a revolution. A young colored essayist I’d read a blurb about while in Haiti, a Mr. Richard Wright, seemed to believe so. And if he was back home in America feeling this way, who was I, an expatriate, and not by choice, to dismiss him? I needed to learn more.

  I looked across the aisle at Dorene. I could have been more forthcoming with her on that festive night back in Pétion-Ville. I could have told her that there was a spiritual element behind my insatiable appetite for learning. For I seek to learn nothing merely for myself. I do it to honor that Negro of long-ago days. Perhaps he might have been lashed to within an inch of his life had he so much as dared to even open a book. I do it for him because I am able. How could I not? Even when I get angry at these ignorant men of today, I hear him whispering to me. He’s saying, No matter how tired your mind grows . . . how saddened your heart . . . how troubled your spirit . . . push forward in honor of me, you unshackled king!

  * * *

  During the last portion of our train ride, as we entered the outskirts of Moscow, I took in the scenery. James and Ginger looked about as if experiencing a new world. Upon first sight, my perception of this part of Moscow wasn’t positive. It was a rugged place—gray, dim, and harsh, even under a clear blue sky. Yet, I was struck by the fact that so many women were everywhere doing what we in the Western world considered men’s work—cleaning streets and driving trolley cars, many of them in padded overalls. It was forward-thinking equality on full display. Once we had disembarked at the station, we hopped on a trolley car and headed toward our destination—the Hotel National—where the chancery was staying. My daughter seemed particularly fixated on our stout, female driver. For reasons I could only im
agine.

  Perhaps Ginger was not only struck by the job this woman was doing, but by her appearance as well. She had a pretty face, and resembled what I’d seen of most the women here so far. They were huskily built, dressed in oversized, weathered, dark clothing—their skin drab. Dorene and Loretta stuck out like sore thumbs, as the Muscovite women wore no makeup or jewelry. Maybe my daughter was struck by this new-to-her-eyes representation of womanhood.

  I, on the other hand, was taken by the architecture. I’d heard that the Red Square was pristine, but so far, as we drove through residential areas, all we’d seen were a bunch of log houses and dirt roads. I couldn’t wait to see some stone structures, to lay eyes on the old Czarist architecture I’d read so much about.

  But the people hustling about had a pep in their step, the men dressed in wrong-sized suits and bulky, square shoes. Taste in attire didn’t seem to be an option. It was as if everyone had picked from the same pile of identical suits and garments, lucky if they’d picked the correct size.

  As we continued through the city, my perception began to brighten and the sprawling city came alive. The people seemed happy in this bustling place. I could see the golden church domes in the distance and felt as if we were traveling on Moscow’s only wide boulevard, as if we were in the middle of a maze made up of narrow cobblestone side roads.

  Taking note of how the streets were dominated by trains of three-car trolleys, I turned to Bobby, who was sitting next to me. “What is the schedule for the rest of the day?” I asked.

  “It depends,” said Bobby. “Do you have to do your damn two-hour Kodokan exercise routine still? You haven’t had a chance to do it today.” He slapped my shoulder. “I’m just razzing you, Press.”

  “I’ll do it first thing in the morning as always. It beats running, believe me!”

  “Unbelievable.” He shook his head. “Anyway . . . the schedule. We’ll get the ladies checked in at the Hotel National, and then you and I will head over to Spaso House. Ambassador Bullitt has put aside a few minutes to receive us.”